Mr. Loverman – Bernadine Evaristo (2013)

Wow. I have just finished up my first read of Bernadine Evaristo’s novel called “Mr. Loverman” – and I loved it. There is not one doubt in my mind that this will not make my Top Ten List of books at the end of the year. Right now, it’s tantalizingly close to the top…

Yes, it was THAT good. I enjoyed this read even more than her 2019 Booker-Prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other, so whatever your experience was with that the highly regarded novel, good or bad, there is an even higher possibility that you will enjoy this novel as much (or more).

Such high words of praise, right? Let me tell you more….

The actual plot revolves around Barrington Jedidiah Walker, a 74-year-old British immigrant, born on the island of Antigua in the Caribbean, who now lives his life in Hackney in London. Barrington (now called Barry) is known for this retro dress sense and as a husband, father and a grandfather. 

He’s been married to wife Carmel for years and has two daughters. 

At the same time as Barry has been married to Carmel, he’s also been living a secret parallel life with his childhood friend and lover, Morris. 

Barry’s retired from his factory job and now has some big choices to make. (And never fear. I’m not giving anything away about the plot here. It’s all on the back-cover text of the paperback I have.)

Barry is a joy to get to know – he is cheeky, mischievous, careful of others’ feelings. At the same time, Barry is deeply flawed in some ways and yet this only makes him even more human. 

He has a grown-up family with wife Carmel, but he’s in love with Morris (and has been for his whole life since he was a child on his island home). His marriage is going into meltdown and Morris would like him to move in with him into his flat. What to do, what to do. 

Bernadine Evaristo, award-winning author.

Evaristo has written this novel mostly from the POV of Barry (with occasional flashes of POV from other characters) and to stay true to that vision, she has written it all in a strong Caribbean accent (mixed up with a bit of London dialect). 

At the same time, the story is also deeply immersed in the older Caribbean immigrant culture of Britain and I found it to be fascinating to see Barry glide in and out of these overlapping environments, each with their own particular set of mores and expectations.

Although this novel is a love story, it also addresses the more weighty issues of prejudice, truth (the definition of truth, to yourself and to others), being a good person, love-is-love, family relationships… It sounds like a very heavy read but through these different POVs, it’s handled with aplomb by the author. 

Barry is hilarious at times. Once I got the hang of his Antiguan accent, I was swept up into the story and stuck closely with him as he tries to figure out what he wants. He’s a caring man – he doesn’t want to be malicious to anyone but he’s old, his family has grown and the marriage seems to consist of constant bickering. 

Morris is his safe haven – but is he willing to risk everything he knows for his childhood friend and lover? 

The only downside I saw in the entire novel was the final chapter. It reads as though it’s just stuck on to the plot at a later date and time in that there is a definite change in the writing style and tone. Barry’s POV remains the focus, but the actual voice of Barry is so completely different. 

It’s set a year ahead of time (I think), and there is the possibility that the characters could have grown and/or matured in some way. The POV just didn’t even sound as if it was originating with the same character.

The writing style (even some of the word choices) seemed rather out-of-character after the previous 298 pages. It didn’t ruin the novel but I was left rather puzzling about why the book ended up like this. 

Despite that little hiccup, I still adored this read. I loved getting to know Barry and Morris, his adult daughters are hilarious in their own ways, and it’s a complex love letter to the city of London and its melting-pot residents. 

Just loved this and am now planning a second read. I’m sure that there were quite a few things that I missed in the first time through… 

Plus – it looks Evaristo has other texts out there to chase down. <rubs hand with glee>. 

Reading Catchup

I’ve been reading quite a bit since the COVID thing started (although not as much as I had anticipated seeing as I have all this time available), but the pace is picking up (in between jigsaws!), and I’m planning on reading more now that school is finished and the grades are in. Phew. 

In the past few weeks, I’ve read a mix of books, a couple of them really excellent and one just meh, but all of them off the TBR. (Go me.)

The “just meh” one was “Home Life One”, the first of four volumes and a collection of newspaper columns from an English journo (?) named Alice Thomas Ellis. (See top pic.) She wrote columns on domestic life, I suppose you’d call it, and they were published in The Spectator, a British magazine that runs conservative (I think). 

I must have read someone somewhere online praising these offerings and rushed out to order it, but the columns didn’t seem to hit the same high notes for me. I think some of this was because I just worked my way through the collection, one after the other, and I now doubt the wisdom of reading the book that way since it all got pretty same-y after a while. Maybe I should remember that next time I choose a similar book. The content was also a little dated (but that’s hardly the author’s fault!) Moving on…

The good reads: a Canadian novel called “Birdie” by Tracey Lindberg (2015). Selected as a 2016 CANADA READS title, I picked this book up on a trip to Vancouver last year as one written by an aboriginal native author. This was a really good read, although it covers some heavy-duty topics as part of the plot: sexual abuse, mental illness, native rights… 

Kudos to the author, though, as this book reads smoothly and although the characters (one in particular) undergoes some hellish experiences, it’s written in a manner that it’s not too much for you as a reader (although it might be triggering for some people). Good book; off the TBR; native author about native characters: win-win-win. 

(Plus – look at the fantastic artwork on the cover: It’s a detail from Modern Girl, Traditional Mind Set by George Littlechild (2010), an author/artist of the Cree Nation, same as Lindberg.)

The other excellent read was just a cheapie bargain book from the sales shelves at B&N (when it was open), but despite the price, it was soooo good (if you like this sort of thing). I’m going to do a more thorough review in the next few days as I’d like to chat about it more in-depth, but suffice to say, I loved it. Stay tuned.

And then a good friend of mine happened to ask me to be an early reader for her second novel – which I loved. If anyone is an agent (or knows one), please let me know. I’d love to hook my writing friend up with someone who knows what they’re doing in the publishing world. Other people need to read her work – it’s good!!

And naturally – jigsaws! 😃

New Books for the TBR Pile.

After having had a three-month book-buying ban (which ended on May 01), there has been a lack of incoming titles to the JOMP TBR. However, it doesn’t mean that I couldn’t accept a lovely literary present from a friend and it also meant that I could order books which arrived after that arbitrary date.

And thus, we have the following new titles to gloat over:

Part of our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library – Wayne A. Wiegand. NF. I’ve been discovering pod casts on my daily work-out walks (since the gym is closed), and one of my favs is the one called “The Librarian is In” from the NYPL team. The cast features Frank and Rhonda (it was Gwen), and it’s just a funny and bright discussion about the wide variety of books that they have both picked up over the previous month. (I think it’s monthly.) Anyway, the guys were talking about the history of African-American libraries in the US and mentioned this title so off I toddled online and bought it. Basically, it’s about what it says in the subtitle: the history of American public libraries. <Rubs hands with glee>

The Secret Life of Cows – Rosamund Young. NF. My kind mum sent me a copy of this and I haven’t got around to reading this yet (although it’s short). I really wanted to get established in my head as a vegan eater before I could read about how lovely cows are, so now I’m definitely eating that way, I can read about cow sweetnesses. 🙂

The Best American Travel Writing 2019 – Alexandra Fuller (ed.). NF. I thoroughly enjoyed my read of the travel writing the other day and so procured this volume, hoping for a similar experience. 🙂

And then a friend popped by (social distancing-wise) and dropped off a lovely art book called “Boundless Books: 50 literary classics transformed into works of art” by Postertext. A fabulous book to look at, it has lots of real classic books included, but by reducing the actual text of the books to a tiny size, the company has created art. Take a look here:

(Above) This is the actual text from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, but see how each word has been shrunk to create more different art? And, even better, the book includes its own magnifying glass so you can actually read these tiny words. Here’s another page:

Here is the entirety of Conan Doyle’s “A Study in Scarlet”. Clever, right?

So, I’ve been looking at this, drawing dragons for a 4yo friend who lives next door, doing jigsaw puzzles and — deep breath – completing final grades for my students. I’m hoping that’s complete now, but we’ll see who is happy with their grade and who is not. 😉

The Best American Travel Writing 2001 – Paul Theroux (editor)

Travel writing at its best… relates a journey of discovery that is frequently risky and sometimes grim and often pure horror, with a happy ending: to hell and back. The traveler ends up at home and seizes your wrist with his skinny hand and holds you with his glittering eye and relates his spellbinding tale.”  

Paul Theroux, Introduction.

Seeing as we have been rather stuck at home, I thought that now would be a really good time to read some travel writing and, having had some success with this series in the past, found an old volume on the old TBR shelves. I did have some hesitation seeing the editor was Paul Theroux (only because I’ve heard of his reputation as a rather grumpy writer), but pulled it down nevertheless, primarily because it was what I had. 🙂

In actuality, despite my initial reservations, this turned out to be a really good read. As with any kind of writing collection chosen by whoever is the editor, there are going to be hits and misses but this compilation was mostly hits, which made it fun to read. 

(The only slightly eye-wincing moment was when I saw that Paul Theroux’s eldest son, Marcel, was also selected as part of this collection of American Travel Writing. One, the optics don’t look that great for a father to choose his own son’s writing for inclusion in a project such as this, and is M.T.’s writing so much more superior than anyone else’s who was up for submission? Oh, and the gender split of authors was a bit eye-watering. This then leads on to related question: how many of these selectees are POC?)

Looking through the index, the selected writing travels far and wide: from Siberia to the U.S. and parts in between, the quality of writing and its content was enjoyable. In fact, it was a really good read overall and actually hit the sweet spot for reading in a pandemic. Plus it fit really well with my COVID reading style which seems to be rather a scattershot approach at the moment. Plus it was a TBR.

Excellent writing came from Peter Hessler (who I adore anyway), Susan Orleans, and 24 other authors, with a gender break-up of five female authors (and 19 males). Grumble, grouse, but this lack of gender balance is a common characteristic for these editions (especially when they are edited by males). Is it really so hard to find someone who is a strong writer and is not a typical white male? Hmm. 

Moving on… The majority of these reads did exactly what they said on the tin: excellent writing combined with strong descriptions and interesting narratives of places off the beaten track. 

Despite its weaknesses (see above), I actually really enjoyed this volume and have just realized that I haven’t bought the 2019 volume just yet (edited by Alexandra Fuller – Hey! A woman slipped into the mix. I’m a bit behind with the book-buying.) This year’s volume (2020) will be edited by Robert McFarlane, another white male Oxbridge fellow, I see (with gritted teeth)…

Still, fingers are crossed to a more balanced gender breakdown inside both of these…

In the end, I am happy to have read this volume and able to travel outside my home, even if it was only in my mind. Along those same lines, I did just go to the grocery store, which counts as adventurous travel in this day and age. 🙂

Incoming Titles: Update

The lovely FoL group had a half-price book sale a weekend or two ago, and who am I to turn down such a kind invitation to see what new titles I could find? So, I went and I found. 🙂

I really tried to stay on target and not fill up my shopping bag (since the December FoL Book Sale was still so recent), but I did find one or two titles to fit my needs!

Bottom to Top:

• The Not so Big House – Susanka (really good interior decorating/design book).
• Turtle Diary – Russell Hoban (1975) – epistolary novel that I saw somewhere that looked good and the library didn’t have its own copy. ETA: Read. Post to come.
• Olive Kitteredge – Elizabeth Strout (2008) – the first novel introducing an interesting character – there’s been a recent release of a follow-up title, but since I couldn’t remember the original story, thought I’d better reread this before picking up that new one!
• Bettyville: A Memoir – George Hodgman (2015, NF/auto).

And then I had briefly mentioned that quick visit to the bookshop on Venice Beach but didn’t give the deets on the title that I bought there? Here it is: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo (2019)… I’ve heard a lot about it from the British bloggers and I was waiting for it to come out in paperback. Very looking forward to that read!

ETA: I’m already reading the Evaristo book. Wow. It’s good. Here’s my review.

The Stationery Shop – Marjan Kamali (2019)

Wandering around the library stacks the other day, I ended up in K’s in Fiction and, in trying to find another book, came across this one and its really lovely book cover. (Gorgeous colors! It mentions stationery!) Not being familiar with either the title or the name of the author, I read the cover copy and was intrigued. It was a library book. It was by a person other than a white one. And I was in the mood for something from another country, regardless which country that was. So – with nowt to lose, I checked this copy out.

So what’s it about? It’s fiction set in Iran in both 1953 and present day (2013), and focuses on the lives of two characters in particular: two young people (in 1953) whose lives were impacted and interrupted by both Iran’s revolution and its cultural mores.

Kamali’s plot revolves around the stationery shop in the title and its bookseller owner as he comes into contact with his customers. It’s quite a clever structure to make the whole plot revolve around this handful of characters who overlap with this bookkeeper in some way, so it was an effective approach.

Two young Iranian lovers arrange to meet and get married at a certain time and at a certain place. To their dismay, their meeting location also turns out to be the same place as where a large political demonstration occurs at that very same time. Chaos ensues, the couple miss each other, wonder what happen but go on to live their lives apart anyway. Much regret of each about the lost opportunity but life sorts itself out – until…. Pivot. Then comes the twist.

Structurally, the book has some jumping around in it, flipping (as it does) from the chaos of the ongoing revolution in 1953 to modern-day Iran and the US, and at first, I had it fairly sorted out but, as the book continued (and I must admit, I let some days pass in between readings), the time jumps were a little disorienting for me. Linked with that, it seemed as though there were an inordinate number of intimately-related characters who kept popping up.

I admit. It could have been my fault for having a Monkey Mind and for letting a few days pass (and brain cells live and die) between the reading. It wasn’t that it wasn’t well written or anything bad like that because when I finished the read, it was as a satisfied reader. So no doubt it’s a good book, but I think I had to sort of gear myself up a bit to refocus on all the strands of the plot and to try and weave some unity out of it all.

Although this might sound like rather a lukewarm review, this was a book that I ended up enjoying after I’d read it all, as opposed to during the actual reading process. I would certainly pick up another of Kamali’s books if that tells you something! 🙂

Los Angeles Trip: Day Two.

The Getty Center up in the hills just outside LA. Definitely worth a visit.

We ended up walking about eight miles on Monday – so our little legs were tired at the end of the day. Tuesday, however, was a brand new day and we elected to take an Uber to the Getty Center up in the hills of LA.

There are actually two Getty places in LA, both different so if I were you, I’d research both and see which one meets your needs. One is more of a villa-type place (with some museum stuff) and the other is a giant research museum with unbelievable architecture high up in the hills. That’s the one we went to and we ended up spending five hours there just piddling around looking at the various exhibitions and taking one of their docent-led architecture tours with a very entertaining person in charge. (All free, btw, and really recommended.)

One of the views at the Getty…

Loads of things to look at, ranging from photography to Old World Artists, alongside contemporary work and the most amazing architecture (by Richard Meier). The brilliant white of the walls and corners contrasted brightly with the blue sky and it was fantastic.

And then inside one of the buildings of the Getty…

And some innovative landscaping as well… It looks rather stark here, but it’s a perfect complement with the architecture.

The hotel we stayed with the wonderful Marina del Rey Hotel, a renovated 1964 hotel on the end of one of the many boat piers around Venice Beach. Super service, lovely people, walkable to a lot of places (including our first Trader Joe experience!) and just loved it.

I have to thank my mum for the trip! 🙂

Some of the contemporary art in the Marina del Rey Hotel.

Los Angeles, California – Jan. 2020

My lovely mum has been staying over Christmas here in the States, first some time with me here in Texas and then a few days up in Northern California with my sister. As that trip with my sister was coming to a close, mum suddenly phoned me up and invited me to come with her on a whistle-stop visit to Los Angeles, and who am I to say no to that? So, I didn’t. 🙂

We had a fab time. In the end, it was two days in the City of Angels but we got to see a load of things in that short time. Let’s proceed…

You know how I like to research before I go anywhere interesting, but with this quick turnaround, I hadn’t had that much time to do much more than actually visit the library to pick up some info there. On the plane out to the West Coast, I learned more about the history of LA, and more specifically, the history of Venice Beach (which was the area where we would be staying).

Beside one of the canals in the Venice Beach neighborhood. You might need to search hard for this area, but it’s so worth it. It’s a quiet and relaxing world. just steps away from the streets of LA.

This area of town was started, I think, by a man who happened to be a very wealthy tobacco magnate and who was enamored with Venice, Italy, after his travels there. Wanting to replicate this city on the West Coast, this guy developed some of the wetlands (on which LA was being built) and designed a neighborhood with great architecture and on the pattern of Venice, complete with actual canals and gondolas and small curving bridges to get from one side to the other. Only about three miles of these original canals still exist after all this time, and they happen to be in – guess where? – Venice Beach.

So, after quite a bit of tromping around not really getting anywhere useful, we finally asked a friendly local walking his dog if he knew where these canals were and he kindly took us there. (It turned out that this friendly local was actually an expat from Texas… Huh. Small World.)

So mum and I spent quite a bit of wandering around this neighborhood being amazed at the whole thing. The canals are still there, with water and with occasional watercraft, but the waterside does need a general spruce-up. (The real estate prices were unbelievable: one place was going for $3.6 MILLION. Another place could be rented for $12,000/month. You know, if you’re interested.)

So that was fun. We then spent some time wandering along the Oceanfront Path at Venice Beach, people-watching and beach-walking and admiring the sea. Bliss. Then, my mum’s sharp eyes spotted a tiny little bookshop (naturally!). Tucked in a corner of a bigger building, mostly a restaurant, there was the Small World Books shop, a small but excellently-stocked bookshop in between t-shirt and henna shops. A little blissful world of books, which we ended up supporting (as you do). Definitely worth a visit, but you’ll need to keep your eyes peeled as it’s quite easy to miss if you’re looking the other way (at the beach, for example).

Then, after all that, our legs got tired so we walked to the hotel to chill out a bit and then have a bit of a supper. We ended up walking about eight miles on this first day. :-}

The view outside our hotel’s location. Boats, boats and more boats.

New Orleans, Louisiana – December 2019.

Well, hello there. I hope you and your lives are all back in balance after the rather discombobulating holidays at the end of last year, and I hope you’re all getting some good reading done.

The Superhero and I decided to take a quick break just prior to Christmas and jetted down to New Orleans (or the Big Easy, as it’s sometimes called) for a few days. It was gorgeous and we stayed at a fantastic renovated B&B (called The Monrose Row Bed and Breakfast) which was managed by a very friendly and excellent person called Cindy. If you ever need a cool place to stay in NOLA, we highly recommend this B&B. It’s close to everything (walkable for most), Cindy is a font of information about the city and where to go, and she is a great cook as well as being very friendly.

View to our room at the B&B…

It’s an old B&B located in one of New Orleans’ many historical quarters and Cindy has made this place so welcoming. Truly. It’s also located very close to most of the places a visitor may want to see on his/her trip, and if not, there’s also Uber available throughout the city. (Assume that most trips will average out about $20+ – or at least that is what we found out.)

The last time we’d been to New Orleans was ages ago and not that long since Katrina had hit and devastated parts of the city. Now, years later, it’s hard to see any long-lasting damage on the buildings although there are now new-and-improved neighborhoods and the city itself feels a little better managed. (It might not be, but on this trip, I definitely felt it was a lot less anarchic than the last trip.)

So, tons of lovely architecture to look at and admire, much of which was specially decorated for Christmas and was just gorgeous to see…

And then, because it’s New Orleans, there’s lots of history so naturally we hit up some museums. There was one that featured an exhibit on Mardi Gras and its history (along with some actual costumes – which are amazing!) and then, we wanted to visit some plantations but only see it from the slavery perspective – not from the colonial white-man view.

After a quick chat with Cindy, the B&B proprietor, she recommended an all-day tour of two different plantations which met this requirement: one plantation from a (white – of course) woman-owned perspective (which is pretty rare) and another plantation from the perspective of African slaves who were imprisoned and forced to work there. Both of these historical experiences were so informative and really emotionally moving, especially when you learned more about the actual people who were enslaved in each place. It’s horrifying that it was real and actually happened, but perhaps people have learned from this… (One can only hope.)

That was a sobering experience for us, and after researching these plantation trips, I recognized a picture of one of the most famous white-man plantations except the pic of the place was used as an example of “glorious southern hospitality” on a Visit Mississippi ad on TV. (People – research the pics before you use them in your campaign!)

Yassum, I kin tell you things about slavery times dat would make yo’ blood bile, but dey’s too terrible. I jus’ tries to forgit. (Amy Chapman, former slave.)

The plantation that was wholly (white) woman-owned and run…

All in all, a fantastic trip for us, especially in the winter months when the humidity is way down and the temperatures aren’t way up (as they are in the summer months). Totally enjoyed the trip and will be back at some point in the future. Highly recommended.

So many plantations with slaves up and down the Mississippi River… 😦

And finally, this guy (above) was a “Poet for Hire” and for a donation, he would write you a short poem on his old typewriter!!

Some more gorgeous architecture to gaze at…

December 2019 Monthly Reading Review

Artist: Nikolai Antonov.

December is wrapping up. It was a busy month but mostly fun, having Christmas and end-of-the-semester in there plus a great trip to New Orleans. (More to come on that trip.)

The reading was pretty good as well:

• All-American Murder: The Aaron Hernandez Story – Alex Patterson (NF Sports). I know – a book about American football and me? But strangely interesting…
• London and the South-East – David Szalay (F) Random pick of library shelves. Not bad…
• Home-Fires: The Story of the WI in WW2 – Julie Summers (NF/History) Very good history of the Women’s Institute in England…
• New Orleans: DK Guide. Travel guide.
• Catchphrase, Slogan and Cliche – History – Judy Parkinson (NF/history)
• Paddington Goes to Town – Michael Bond (F) Really needed something fairly easy and straightforward to read immediately post-semester!
• The Snowman – Raymond Briggs (F/GN). See above.
• English Country House Murders: an Anthology – Thomas Godfrey (F). See above.
• Friday Black – Nana Kwame Adjej-Brenyah (F-Short stories). Challenging but in a good way.

• Total books read:  9
• Total pages read:   2511 pp. (av. 279 pp.)
• NF: 4 (44% of monthly total)      
• F: 5 (56% of monthly total)
• TBR: 8 (89% of monthly total read). Go me.
• Total % TBR for year to date: 64%. (Happy with this number.)
• Library: 1  
• POC author/topic(s): 2 (22% of monthly total). Will. Do. Better.
• Male to Female: 5 males + 2 females + 2 of mixed genders.
• DNFs: 0
• Oldest title: 1969 (Paddington Goes to Town/Michael Bond…) . 
• Longest title (re: page count): 533 pp. 
• Shortest title (re: page count) (excluding DNFs): 32 pp.

And – strangely enough, no relevant book review posts either. (There were some other posts but not about the actual books, which is weird for a book blog, yes?) I can only attribute this aberration to running out of time and energy at the end of the semester, but trust you’ll forgive me. 🙂

There was a lovely visit with my mum and, naturally, we completed a jigsaw or two, the large one was only completed with super-human effort by us both in an effort to finish it before she left early the next day. Completely fun and very worth it.

Just a fun little holiday puzzle… (500 pieces)

This was the puzzle that we needed to speed-complete. It was also the largest one (1000) — of course. 🙂

Moving into the new year, I don’t really have any complicated reading plans. I’m definitely going to partake in the Non-Fiction November when it comes around, but apart from that, I’ll take it as it comes. I might do Simon and Kaggsy’s Year Project but again, pretty open-ended on that right now.

I’m collecting info for the Best-of-Year blog post, but might skip the Best-of-Decade post that is traveling around the blogosphere right now. Depends on time…

Whatever your plans, wherever you may be – here’s to a year of peace and plenty for you. (Oh, and some good reads as well.) 🙂